Upcycled Panda Purse

This is the story of a panda purse.

My niece is into pandas right now. She's also into drawing, so she sometimes carries around a little notebook and pen. What better Christmas gift for her, then, than a panda purse? (I.e., a purse that features a cute panda face, not a purse made from a panda, of course.)

And so it was, on December 27, I spent a good portion of my day off work bringing this panda purse into existence. Because I like to salvage scraps and upcycle old things, this purse would require no new purchases -- just my time and anxiety.

I started with a black and white tote bag that was a bridesmaid gift from my sister's wedding ten years ago. From it, I cut the main body of the purse and a rectangle for a pocket. It also had straps, which I detached to reposition on the new, smaller purse. 

I nabbed a zipper from a black backpack that was falling to pieces (the backpack was falling apart; but its zippers are still in great shape, like they were designed for a much more durable bag). Here's a tip that may seem obvious: You can always make a zipper shorter. 

The panda's facial features came from my supply of felt and spare buttons, including two little white buttons that were spares to my wedding dress.

It all sounds rather perfect, doesn't it? Well, you know me and my improvisational sewing projects. Even if I do plan it out on paper and make patterns to cut certain shapes, I'm still sort of winging it, and so no project is ever finished until I've used my trusty seam ripper to pull something apart and start all over again.

I started smart by sewing on the pocket and the panda's face first. Then I assembled the purse's pieces inside out and stitched them together by machine, going around twice for reinforcement... 

When I turned the thing right-side out to gaze upon my finished project, I realized I'd sewn the panda's ears to the inside of the purse instead of the outside, and the straps were on the wrong side of the zipper so that they actually had to be tucked inside the purse for the zipper to close. Also, I should have used white thread for the zipper instead of black, because even though the zipper is black, the part of the purse to which it's attached is white. Dagnabbit.

Discouraged and annoyed, I carefully seam-ripped the top half of the purse, repositioned the ears and straps and pinned them into place, restitched the zipper, and then hand-stitched the straps and ears to the outside of the purse.

Voila!

OK, I'm not 100% satisfied with some of the finishing details, like, I should have folded under and ironed a neat seam around the pocket edges instead of sewing it on flat ragged, but it's still a cute purse, and I hope my niece likes it and uses it.

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